THE OAKS 



By FRED L. CHARLES, University of Illinois 



Nearly everyone knows an oak tree at first sight, but how 

 many are there who can readily distinguish one species of oak 

 from another? Yet each species has its individuality and a lit- 

 tle practice in identification will enable anyone to recognize the 

 more common forms, even in winter. The most opportune time 

 to begin this study is in the fall, when the members of the oak 

 tribe are vying with one another in their annual display of color. 

 In northern Illinois this exhibit is at its height during the third 

 week of October. The nut trees and the elms, the basswood and 

 the hard maples have led the way and now it remains for the 

 oaks to tint the groves with hues of autumn sunset. Brown, 

 orange, red, scarlet and purple betray the trees of varying habit 

 and after most of the other deciduous forms have parted with 

 their foliage, certain of the oaks still cling to their dead leaves, 

 retaining them until the spring rains come. 



The origin of the names of the various oaks is interesting. 



The white oak receives its name 

 from the color of the bark and 

 the wood; the bur oak is so 

 called because of its mossy acorn cup; the red 

 oak is named from its wood, the scarlet oak from 

 the brilliant autumnal hue of its foliage, the 

 black oak from its bark, the pin oak from its 

 numerous slender branchlets, and the post oak 

 from the service to which it is put. The oaks 

 constitute the genus Quercus (Latin for Oak). 

 Together with the birch, alder, hazel-nut, 

 ironwood, chestnut and beech, they are by 

 some authorities placed in the group Cupil- 

 iferae (cupule-bearing, referring to the cup- 

 like involucre of the acorn). In literature, 

 as in the crafts, the oak has ever been rec- 

 ognized as the symbol of strength, the most 

 majestic of our forest trees, "famed for 

 longevity". It is one of the most valuable 

 of timber trees. 

 On every twenty-year-old oak when in bloom — does your 

 calendar tell when the oak tree bears its .blossoms ? — we find two 

 kinds of flowers, the staminate flowers, borne in slender drooping 

 catkins, and the pistillate flowers, which occur singly or in small 



BUR OAK TWIG WITH 

 YOUNG ACORNS 



